Empathy [Ben Hargreeves]

Episode Eight. Part III.

"I Heard a Rumor"

Five drove his adoptive siblings around the town of Gerard looking for Luther. Elle finally sensed his heavy aura before she caught sight of his broad shoulders through the window of a near-empty bar. Five pulled the Warden's Rolls Royce into a parking space out front. After they all piled out, Klaus swung open the glass door of the bar. 

"Trying a little hair of the dog, are we?" Klaus lightly teased Luther who had a large mug in front of him and was nursing a hangover. "Hm?"

"Leave me alone," Luther intoned without looking away from his large hands wrapped around his drink. There was defeat in his expression, and his emotions felt like waves of depression crashing against the shores of self-loathing.

Diego took a seat to the left of Luther, and Elle pulled out the chair opposite of him. "Give us a minute." Diego waved his three hovering siblings away. Elle grumbled and shoved the chair back in against the table. 

"Okay, come on. Maybe they'll brood--" Klaus waved his hands around for emphasis."--each other to death."

Elle snorted a laugh and agreed.

Five limped over to another table to lean against. Klaus and Elle followed.

Diego and Luther got right into their discussion, voices low.

A few minutes passed as they waited. Klaus tapped his wrist in a "we're running out of time" motion to Five. 

"You should have led with that!" Luther thundered to Diego and stood abruptly. He raced out of the bar with his four siblings hot on his heels. The shattered glass from Luther breaking the door in his haste was left in their wake. "Shit," he cursed but didn't stop.

The atmosphere in the car on the way to Jackpine Cove was understandably tense. The feeling was like smoke trapped in the car, and Elle was suffocating in the backseat between the body heat of Luther and Diego. 

"Open the window," the empath finally gasped out. Her hands were shaky as she gripped her head. Five eyed his empathic sister through the rearview mirror, and Klaus turned around in the front seat to look at her flushed face. 

Luther and Diego both cranked their windows down simultaneously. 

"Breathe, Elle," Diego encouraged. "Like Mom always said -- inhale for ten, hold, exhale for ten."

Elle did the breathing technique several times until it calmed her hyperventilation but not the unsettled feeling in her stomach. "I don't feel good," she groaned. "Something's wrong. I can feel it."

Klaus placed a hand on her fishnet-covered knee to ground her to something solid and real. "Describe it for us, darling."

"It's dark brown with flickers of fading yellow." Elle closed her eyes and concentrated on the energy that was calling to her. "Allison is usually yellow with an outline of icy blue. I think I've honed into Allison's aura," she realized. "She's afraid."

Luther leaned forward over Five's shoulder. "Can you go any faster?" he urged.

"Ask me again, and I'll burn you with the cigarette lighter," Five threatened calmly, but contrary to his words, the car accelerated.

Eloise screamed all of a sudden and clutched her throat as if someone had slashed the skin. She writhed and cried at the pain that didn't belong to her. There was no blood on her skin, but she could feel agony and shock that surged through the intertwining bond connecting Allison to Elle. All the nerve-endings in her body were on fire. 

"Allison!" she choked. There was no other explanation for the explosion of emotion.

Luther went pale. Diego shakily forced Elle's glowing sapphire eyes to his. "Elle, you need to calm down. If she's injured and panicking, she'll bleed out faster. Force the emotion the other direction. Send her calm." 

Elle cried out and squeezed her eyes closed so tightly that she could see a galaxy on the back of her eyelids. Her ability was fighting the rationale from her mind. Her nails were piercing crescent marks into the skin of her neck. Her eyes fluttered open to reveal her flickering eye color -- blue-grey, dark brown... black, dark blue, lilac...

"Elle, you're okay," Klaus said desperately. "It's not you. Focus on me. My voice. Focus on... Ben. Think about Ben. Your love for him. Shift the pain to affection."

"We're almost there!" Five called through the car. "The house is down this road!"

Eloise couldn't concentrate. She hadn't trained in so long, and her abilities were hindered by her anxiety. She sucked in a shaky breath.

"Fuuck." Her sudden whiney tone brought all eyes to Elle. She realized what she had to do, and it was something the others were too afraid to suggest. She was known to bite the head off anyone who mentioned the meds that were created for her by the Warden.

Unbuttoning the small pocket above her left breast, Elle pulled out a singular green pill that she kept only for emergencies. She cursed again and dry-swallowed the drug. The haze that took hold of her mind was nearly instantaneous. 

"Elle?"

Number Eight hyperfocused her attention on the dimming aura radiating from inside a house a mile away. She inhaled deeply to pull the anxieties from Allison and shoved them in a dark corner of her own mind to deal with later. Several more times, she picked an emotion that was causing her sister's heart to race and swiped it until there was only a grim calm and exhaustion floating around. 

The engine turned off. "Elle, we're here. Stay in the car with Klaus," Diego ordered. 

"I-I have to... She can't fall asleep," Elle mumbled. She was too drained to send waves of energy towards Allison; the bean pill had spread from her brain to her abilities, and she was left to be a zombie inside of herself.

Klaus climbed into the backseat as everyone else got out of the car. He cradled Elle's head to his chest. With the hem of his shirt, he wiped at the trail of blood that left a stain under her nose. "You did what you could. Rest now, darling."

Allison was tired and fading fast when Luther burst into the room to find her bleeding to death on the floor. "Allison! No!" Luther fell to his knees and pulled Allison's limp body towards him. He sobbed. "Please, look at me... please..."

☆•☆•☆

Note: The bean pill clouds the excess emotions when Eloise first takes it, so she can hyperfocus her pathokinetic abilities. Then the haze takes over the surrounding emotions and her abilities. She can only sense auras when the pill has taken full effect.